Too Late
by SecretLifeOfAChemNerd
Summary: She wasn't always crazy. She didn't always want to follow everything her father said. She was just a little girl searching for love. Searching for a family. A look at the...softer side of Yang.


**This is my first attempt at Psych angst. It's also the longest Psych thing I've ever written! I normally just do drabbles for this show and leave the angst stuff for a different fandom, but after this weeks episode I just started thinking about this and couldn't get it out of my head. This is what came out! So, hope you enjoy and please review!**

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She wasn't always crazy. She didn't always want to follow everything her father said. She was just a little girl searching for love. Searching for a family.

When she was eight, she asked her father why she didn't go to school like the other kids her age. Why did she have to be home schooled? She wanted to go out and play with the other kids, to have fun OUTSIDE for once.

He just shook his head, telling her that it wasn't safe. He was keeping her here and away from other people for her own good. He told her they didn't love her the way he did and they would be mean and hurtful, like they were to him when he was small. They were different, he explained, but he understood her like no one else would, that they fit together perfectly . . . like yin and yang. She still didn't understand, but didn't fight it. Her daddy knew what was best for her.

The first time it happened she didn't know what to think. He came to her in the middle of the night to tell her about "the game". He said it would be "fun" and that the people that were mean to him were going to pay. He said it would be their secret, that they would be in it together. She was only 16.

She watched her father murder an innocent girl that night, someone he had never even met. She just stood there terrified, but enthralled. Every instinct in her body was telling her to look away, but she couldn't. It was like a drug, a hallucinogen overpowering her system, making her see strange and unusual thing that couldn't be real. Yet, as her dad set the clues in place she saw what this was.

Apparently, this was the game. When the police would find the body, it would set everything into motion. Dad said that if they were smart enough they could save the other girl, the one he already had.

It scared her to think this might not have been the first time he had ever done this before, but he was still her dad, she still loved him, and more than anything in the world she wanted his approval. She wanted him to be proud of his little girl.

So she kept quiet. Ran along with him on his little escapades, never once questioned his madness, and soon enough, she thought she was going mad too. It still bothered her to an extent, being apart of the murders, but not as much as the beginning. She was becoming desensitized. Her grip on reality slowly slipping until she wasn't sure what was real of fake anymore. Confusion took over as more and more murdered went unsolved, as they never once got caught, and as she stood back and watch her father kill.

It accrued to her that she should try and stop him, that things might have gone a little too far, but she couldn't stand to think of the look of disappointment that would pass his features when she told him she didn't want this anymore, had never wanted it.

But then she saw HIM, and everything changed. It was one of the rare occasions her father let her leave the house during the day, just down to the corner market to pick up groceries while he was at work. "Keeping up appearances" was what he called it. She was taking the bags out of the trunk, just about to shut the door when her world was changed forever.

He was a boy, probably in his early teens, riding a bike. He smiled smally as the wind blew his hair around his face. He looked happy, which was a foreign concept to her.

She thought she had known what happiness felt like, thought she felt it when her dad smiled at her (which was a rare occurrence at that), but she never once looked carefree as this boy, or so full of life. His eyes were so kind, and so unlike the dark hollow black of her father's. She wanted to know him, but more importantly . . . she wanted to be him.

It was fate that at that moment, a blonde woman walked up to him, apparently his mother, asking where he had been, and that dinner was getting cold. And she had a camera!

She didn't know what possessed her to do it. The only contact she had with people other than her father were the people they would kidnap and kill (even though she had never touched one of them herself), but despite her trepidations, and the knowledge of what her father would do if he ever found out about it, she walked straight up to the blonde woman and asked for a picture with her son.

The woman was shocked to say the least, but after hearing her out, agreed to take a picture.

It was quick, just a simple shot, but when she slipped an arm around Shawn Spencer's shoulders she felt warm. She felt whole. This was what she wanted.

This must be what love felt like.

The whole ordeal lasted a minute at most, and then Shawn and his mother were gone. It was just a small moment in their life's, one they would grow to forget about in the coming years, but for her it grew to define her life.

The concept of family took over her mind. She found herself staying up, countless sleepless nights spent daydreaming about what it must be like to be part of the Spencer household. She bet they had dinner together every night, that they laughed and went to movies and amusement park like real families do, not sitting around plotting murders and inventing new ways to baffle the police.

Every moment was consumed with thought of Shawn Spencer and the wonderful life he must lead. She wondered what it would be like to meet Shawn properly, to get to talk to him. Maybe if she met Shawn, her and daddy could become a real family. Maybe they could stop hurting people. Maybe Shawn could save her.

Years passed, and Shawn grew up. She would sit at the window and watch when he rode by, most of the time accompanied by another boy who had skin of pure coco velvety-ness. Then the bikes changed to cars, and a motorcycle. She knew Shawn's father must not be happy about that.

Then he disappeared. And though she sat by the window everyday, waiting for him to come by, he didn't. He must have moved away. Gone somewhere worthwhile and exciting. Somewhere that wasn't near her. He wouldn't be saving her anytime soon.

Her and her father gathered quite the reputation since the beginning of their crimes. They were dubbed the "Yin/Yang" killer. She knew this should have made her excited, it certainly did for her father. But, without Shawn it just felt empty.

It was the years before Shawn vanished that they became inactive. Her father said they were "taking a break" and "waiting for a worthy opponent." She was thrilled. Years of murder free time went by. Years where she had nothing to do but sit and daydream.

Then like a bullet hitting her and waking her from the sleep she had fallen into, a name caught her attention on the news one night. "Shawn Spencer". Her eyes flew open, going wide as she listened to the news report about how Shawn had solved a case for the police department. How Shawn had opened a psychic detective agency.

For her, it meant that Shawn was back in Santa Barbra. Back where he belonged.

Unfortunately for her, daddy had been in the room. He noticed her interest, and immediately began questioning her about Shawn, knowing his father from their numerous run ins with the police.

She brushed it off (or tried too anyway), saying she had no interest and simply remembered the name Spencer, since they lived not five blocks away from them, and since his dad was a distinguished officer.

It was three years later that Daddy decided Shawn was their next worthy opponent. That he could be the one to finally beat them. She was confused, thinking the whole point of the game was to not get caught, wondering why he would want to end it now. Maybe he was getting too old for the murder game.

But the point was they were coming out of their hiatus... and going after the object of her obsession.

It wasn't until they had Shawn's mother that she realized her father knew about her attachment to Shawn. It was then she realized that this wasn't just about the game anymore.

He was testing her, and as she sat in the drive-in theater, remote in hand, he father's voice in her head screaming at her to push the button and blow her up already that she realized she couldn't do it.

She was letting her father down, making him disappointed, but she couldn't rip apart this family. The thought of what Shawn's face would look like when he learned of his mother's death was enough to convinced her to not press the button.

And when Shawn climbed in the car beside her it was like all of her dreams were coming true. They TALKED! A real honest to god conversation before she handed the remote over and she was dragged away by the awaiting officers, but not before she saw her father from his hiding place two cars behind her, giving her a look that could have killed her right then and there.

But that's not what mattered. What mattered was that Shawn was happy.

It was just an extra bonus that a year later he came and visited her in prison, asking for help, because they knew she had a partner, they knew she didn't do it alone. Her father had taken the name "Mr. Yin" after the name Yang had been given to her upon capture.

She gave him the clues he needed to figure it out. Shawn was a smart boy, he could easily decipher the cryptic clues she slipped him. It was only a bonus when he came back for more advice.

Then like a gift from god, he again showed up in another year, because "Yin" was back. He needed her again, and the mer thought made her heart beat faster. Sure, it was off putting that he didn't remember the picture incident. The moment was so significant to her, and the knowledge that he had no recollection of it made her more than a little sad. She quickly got over it however when he was able to get her out of the prison, if just for a little bit.

She got to see his room. Surveying the crime scene, looking for the signs her father would leave behind after they took someone. It didn't surprise her that he figured it out, Shawn always got the guy... she just never thought it would end like it did.

With her walking in and killing him, feigning compassion and regret before taking her first life.

Watching her dad didn't do the feeling justice, but after he killed someone he always had a look of triumph and accomplishment on his face. She just felt dirty, contaminated, and empty. Because he never loved her, and as much as she tried to shake it off it haunted her for the rest of her life.

The rest of her horribly empty and lonely life.

The one thing she had was the new picture of her and Shawn. The one reminder that there was still good people in the world. That there was a person who would stop at nothing to bring guys like her father to justice...to bring people like her to justice.

She was a murderer now. The person she killed was the one she seeked approval for all her life. The one she wanted to love her. He was her only family, and she had killed him to protect Shawn Spencer. She killed him to protect the person who lived the life she would do anything to have.

Maybe it was too late for her to have a happy ending, but Shawn . . . it wasn't too late for him. She would give anything to make sure he had a story book ending. To make sure he was truly happy.

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**I'm gonna be honest and say I don't really like the ending, but I needed a way to stop and came up with that. So...yeah. Review please? I have to say I miss writing Psych stuff, and will probably do more of it in the future! Nothing like Psycho's =)**

**Thanks for reading! And Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!  
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